by Mike Nicol
He made a joke about Pylon’s smile. Oumou vanished. It was Treasure on the bed. Treasure saying, ‘Mace, give us a week to play happy families.’
Mace caught Pylon’s eye.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Treasure.
‘Nothing to think about.’ Mace shifted uneasily from foot to foot.
Treasure squinted at him, disbelief writ large in her eyes. ‘Good. That’s what I like to hear.’
Mace stayed five minutes more. Listened to the girls coochy-cooing, rapt in adoration for the newborn. Heard the lovingness of Pylon and Treasure. Everything distant, until he had to be on the move, couldn’t stand still any longer. Backed out saying his goodbyes, reminding Christa that he’d pick her up later about five-thirty, they could do a swim and supper.
In his car in the car park, Mace sat staring at the mountains, the Tokai peak under cloud, veils of rain drifting over the slopes. His hands were shaking. He held them up, let them judder like they belonged to a puppet. Not his hands at all. He gripped the steering wheel.
That’d been Oumou in there on the bed. He’d seen her, clearly. Her smile as he entered the room. Her hand reaching for him. The sheer dazzling beauty of her. He’d smelt her, smelt the warm comfort of clay on her fingers.
‘It’s your state of mind,’ he said aloud. Rested his forehead on the steering wheel between his hands. ‘It’s in your head. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t her. It wasn’t her.’
It had been. As real as anything was real.
She was dead. She wasn’t dead. In the ward she wasn’t dead.
He thumped his forehead against the steering wheel. Felt the grief come over him like a blanket damp and smothering and couldn’t breathe and the pain in his chest throbbed until he moaned a long elegy of sorrow. In the silence afterwards Mace heard a voice say, ‘Are you alright? Excuse me, are you alright?’ A tapping on his side window. An old man standing there about to get into the car alongside. A woman in the car saying, ‘Leave him, Pa. Come on, we’re in a hurry.’
Mace looked up at the man. Could have been looking at death warmed up, his skull right beneath the skin. The man got into the car, slammed the door closed, kept staring at him while the woman reversed out.
‘Chrissakes,’ said Mace, ‘this’s all I need.’
With his palsied hand he got out his cellphone, connected to Captain Gonsalves. Having difficulty getting the unlock off.
‘About time you got back to me,’ said the cop, ‘you’re gonna miss the fun and games. About half an hour the shit’ll hit the fan.’
Mace got the coordinates from the policeman, put foot to the highway. The shaking eased off but he could still feel the blood in his veins. Like it was acid, burning.
Being on the go helped: something to think about, something to anticipate. Also this time of the afternoon, on the highway in the rain with traffic picking up as the early commuters headed home, you had to drive with focus. Motorists lane-hopping, coming up fast on the inside, weaving about like high-speed death wasn’t a possibility. Mace swore at those who cut him, those who tailgated, having not too bad a time raving. Even smiled at his excess after he’d given a woman the finger, calling her everything south of stupid bitch.
Beyond the airport the traffic thinned, he wound up the speed to one-forty, reckoning no herdboy would be grazing his cows on the highway shoulders in the wet. The last thing you needed in poor viz was a cow in the lane, chewing the cud, watching you belting down at speed, but Mace was betting against that scenario.
At the R44 off-ramp, he headed up the long slope, went right over the bridge, then right again onto a sand road into shackland between burst bags of garbage. No street names, electricity wires sandbagged across the road, people hurrying through the drizzle. Half a kilometre down, taking it slowly through ruts and holes, he stopped behind two police vans slewed across the gate to a corrugated-iron shack. Gonsalves under an umbrella standing at the shack door chewing tobacco.
‘Hey, Meneer Bish,’ he said, ‘what kept you?’ Shot a plug of yellow mush into a puddle. ‘Nothing for you here. Nothing here for us either.’
Mace got out of his car, zipped up his anorak, pulled the hoodie over his head, hopping across the rain pools till he bumped into the captain.
Gonsalves said, ‘Get your own umbrella.’
Mace took a peek into the shack, smelt paraffin and Lifebuoy soap. ‘So what’s it?’
‘Seems you blotted a contact. Guy was keeping us on the inside, the guy that took the picture.’ He held the cellphone towards Mace, a photo of four men on the screen.
‘Tough shit.’
‘Very, ja. Pissed off some of the makulu bosses. They liked this guy’s information. Giving good intelligence about hijacks, the chop shops, all that sorta stuff.’
‘Doesn’t curl me up with guilt.’
‘Didn’t think it would.’
‘So whose place is this?’
‘Chappie called Kortboy who hasn’t been home since he drove off with three others last night. According to the neighbour. That house.’ Gonsalves waved at a shack across the street. ‘Good citizen was outside taking a leak in the rain.’
‘And the other one?’
‘Not a clue.’ The captain picked tobacco strands from his lips. ‘All we know’s Kortboy’s got a family. Well, the way black men have families. A son by a woman lives not far from here. She’s with another man now. Says Kortboy has a temper on him, not against giving her a thwack from time to time.’
‘Nice.’
‘Says too Kortboy doesn’t have any interest in his son. Never sees him. How do you figure that one? Here’s a father won’t have zilch to do with his boy. Unnatural. But that’s the SA dad for you, hey.’
Mace wondered about that. Christa wouldn’t disagree. Which was why he had to take her for a swim. Talk to her over supper. Tell her what? That losing Oumou was more than he could stand. That he needed her, Christa, to keep him together. That was something to lay on the kid. He sighed.
Gonsalves said, ‘What’s that for?’
‘What?’
‘The sigh?’
Mace shrugged. ‘Burdens of the world.’
Gonsalves snorted. ‘We all got them, pellie. You’re nothing special, ’cept for a dead wife.’
‘Could be you’re right,’ said Mace. ‘Just remember who’s paying your pension top-up.’
‘Ooooo, there’s a nasty one. Finger jab to the old kidneys.’
Mace bent towards the cop’s ear, could smell his stale hair. Whispered: ‘Pray for salvation, Gonz. Pylon and me, we’re all that’s between you and your next job in the marble foyers. With a peak cap. The nightwatch guy chewing tobacco watching security screens of office cleaners vacuuming. The nearest you’re going to get to watching a soapie.’
‘Know what, Bish?’ said Gonsalves. ‘You’re a complete shit. How’s Buso, talking of shits?’
‘A father.’
‘Tell him congratulations. And his arm?’
‘A flesh wound.’
The captain made no comment, looking away through the rain at the cops in the cars waiting for him. ‘Time to go.’ He edged Mace aside, pulled closed the shack door.
‘So what happens here?’
‘The neighbour’s on our side. Kortboy gets back, he’s gonna give us a bell.’
‘You could leave a man here.’
‘No we couldn’t. Manpower shortage.’ Captain Gonsalves tiptoed down the path to the cars, still getting his black shoes mucked. Called back, ‘Maybe you’ve got someone.’
‘Manpower shortage,’ said Mace.
‘See what I mean.’ The captain got into the first car, started peeling a cigarette even before the driver had turned the ignition.
Mace watched them go. Sirens hee-hawing just to annoy the citizenry.
He looked off at the mountain chain low in the rain haze. The slopes of luxury. Wondered what it would be like opening your door every day on to sand, the rain pissing down, the wind biting your marrow, over there on the moun
tain slopes you knew warm bodies were turning up the heaters. Kortboy clearly didn’t appreciate it.
Mace went across the street to the neighbour, laid two hundred on the man’s palm to guarantee that if Kortboy pitched up, the man understood his phone call priorities.
The man said, ‘He’s a dangerous tsotsi.’
Mace said, ‘Let me worry about that.’
The man checking him out. ‘That’s a nice hoodie, my brother.’
‘It’s staying on my shoulders,’ said Mace.
The man grinned a row of haphazard teeth. ‘Doesn’t hurt to ask.’
Before he left the township Mace took two calls: the first came in as a stomach punch, a female voice saying, ‘I’m a reporter on the Cape Times’ – not giving her name. She left a gap there that Mace didn’t fill. Then, ‘I’m working on the Dinsmor story. Mr Bishop, can you confirm that you’ve not heard from the kidnappers?’
‘That so,’ said Mace, ignoring the question. ‘Who’re you?’
The reporter gave her name, Mace said, ‘You wrote that story this morning?’
The woman said she did the crime scene.
‘I didn’t like it,’ said Mace. ‘Any more questions, ask the police.’
‘I’ve talked to the police.’
‘Then you know everything I know.’
‘Mr Bishop,’ she said, ‘what I don’t know is how this happened? How you walked into it?’
‘What? Walked into it. Walked into what?’
‘The hijack. A security company like yours.’
‘You’re implying we stuffed up?’
‘I’m asking what happened? You’re experienced. Ex-mercenaries. Arms dealers.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Mace about to lose it. ‘Lady, what’s your case?’
‘I just want to know what happened? How you walked into it, guarding such important clients. With these hijack syndicates part of the scene. Surely you anticipate.’
‘Lady,’ said Mace. ‘We weren’t mercenaries. Never ever.’
‘I heard …’
‘What you heard’s not important. What I’m telling you is.’
‘So let’s put the record straight.’
‘It’s straight already. We weren’t mercenaries.’
‘An interview. Okay at your office.’
‘You’re not listening,’ said Mace. ‘I said talk to the cops.’
‘I’ve got a quote from the police commissioner that says the security industry is overcharging and careless. He says, quote, The Dinsmor kidnapping should never have happened, unquote. Then he says, quote, There’re too many chancers with a gun and smooth talk taking advantage of the situation. When things go wrong, people get hurt. End of quote.’
‘That’s bullshit.’
‘It’s what he said. It’s what I’m quoting.’
‘You can quote what you like. It’s bullshit.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Forget it,’ said Mace. ‘No comment.’
‘You said …’
‘I’m ending this, okay. No comment. Goodbye.’ Mace disconnected. Bloody reporters. Wasn’t a thing you said they didn’t twist. He saved her number just in case. He fired the ignition. Half-truths. Insinuations. Suggestions. Outright goddamned lies most of the time. His phone rang again. Mace about to launch with screw you lady I’m not interested, saw Oosthuizen’s name on the screen. Thumbed him on.
‘Oosthuizen,’ said the voice to his hello.
‘I know,’ said Mace. ‘I got your name here on my phone. So what’s it?’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘Granted. What’s it?’
An Oosthuizen silence. Mace put the car into the start of a ten-point turn in the narrow road. Got through three manoeuvres before Oosthuizen spoke.
‘There’s a ticket at the airport for you. First Joburg flight, oh-six-hundred tomorrow. Gets you there oh-seven-fifty about the same time my colleague arrives. You’re on the 10 o’clock back.’
‘What’s this?’ said Mace. ‘No, no, no, hokaai, slow down. We agreed two days.’
Another of Oosthuizen’s silences, Mace managing to get the car forward back forward back. Then, ‘There’ve been developments.’
‘Your problem.’
‘I know. It’s not what I wanted. But some things you’ve got no control over. Help me on this one, okay.’
‘I told you two days.’
Another waste of airtime. Mace got his car facing out of the township. ‘Double rates tomorrow.’
Why, thought Mace, didn’t jobs work out in sequence?
‘I’ve got to tell you,’ Oosthuizen was saying, ‘my colleague thinks he’s in danger.’
‘Brilliant. You going to tell me who’s after him?’
‘He might get stopped at passport control, coming in.’
‘Then you’ll need a lawyer.’
‘Oh I’ve got one,’ said Oosthuizen. ‘A very good one.’ A pause. ‘So I can rely on you?’
‘Double rates.’
‘That is what I said.’
Mace watched the man who wanted his hoodie, standing under a lean-to, smoking, watching him. Wondered what complications the man had in his life? He flicked the windscreen wipers to clear the rain drops. The man grinning his snaggletooth smirk.
‘Alright,’ he said to Oosthuizen. ‘Get the money in my bank upfront.’
‘Half,’ said Oosthuizen.
The man with the gap-teeth kept wearing the grin, held up two fingers like he was making a phone call. Mace hadn’t a clue what was funny.
‘Half,’ he said to Oosthuizen. What was with the man he had a comeback on everything?
‘Excellent,’ said Oosthuizen. ‘Do you know the writer James Ellroy, Mr Bishop?’
‘No,’ said Mace.
‘You should read more.’
‘My daughter does that.’
‘Good for her. Ellroy, Mr Bishop, he’s the identifier.’ Then Mace heard him swear, a Chihuahua yapping in the background.
27
Veronica Dinsmor sensed the day winding down. The skylight a diffused grey, darkening. There’d been sudden sun earlier, shafts that’d lit up the interior, been snuffed as quickly. Then the gradual muting. Less noise from the surrounding streets. No bandsaw whine. No hammering. If she was going to scream, now was the time, before everyone went home.
She sat on the chair in front of the heater, free, untied.
She’d cleaned the blood off her face, doctored the cuts with salve from her medicine bag. Nothing serious but her eye was black. A lot of blood in the white. And she hurt. Her face, her shoulders, her kidneys. A sharp pain that made her wince. She reckoned she’d taken a kick there. Either that or the lack of water was the cause.
They’d let her change into clean clothes.
‘Please,’ she’d begged.
Kortboy was hesitant.
‘It’s okay,’ said Zuki. ‘What’s she gonna do?’
‘Cause shit.’
‘Just a woman, my bra. Nothing to worry about.’
They’d let her sit unbound all afternoon, let her do some yoga to get her circulation back.
She knew their names. The driver was Zuki, the short one Kortboy. She knew their life stories: Zuki the electrician who used to fix illegal connections from the grid until he saw a man fried; Kortboy the window-cleaner who got tired of looking in on rich lives.
She heard they both had children. Zuki a boy and a girl. Kortboy a son. Kids not yet five years old. Kids they didn’t see much of. Kortboy’s son lived in the township. Zuki’s two in the rural areas. ‘Better that way,’ he said. ‘No drugs and crime.’
She told them about her life, gave them a story about an alcoholic father, an abused mother. That her father’d died in jail, that her mother lived on a reservation in a handicap home. Mentally out of it. Didn’t remember anything of her life, didn’t recognise her own daughter, hadn’t done for years.
‘D’you know how hard that is?’ Veronica said, looking from Zuki to Kortboy,
the two men shaking their heads. ‘That hurts you when your mother doesn’t know you anymore. She doesn’t know you were the child she gave birth to.’ She reached out a hand to both men: Zuki other side of the desk, Kortboy half-sitting on it. ‘I blame it on the white man,’ she said. ‘They killed us, took our land. When we were down they gave us liquor.’
‘You’re an Indian?’ said Kortboy.
‘I am, son. Native American. My name is Dancing Rabbit.’
‘We have the same history,’ said Zuki.
‘Sure do,’ said Veronica. She told them about her pregnant daughter. About how she looked forward to being a grandmother. This feeling of the cycle of life: the third generation being born. That they knew the baby would be a girl. How magical that was. She told them about what she and her husband hoped to achieve, so they could leave a legacy. A legacy for people like them. For those who life had mistreated. Why they were in Cape Town. ‘We’ve come to be of help,’ she said. ‘Create jobs. Spread some wealth.’
She’d been working up to asking about Silas, wanting to put them at ease first. Establish a hierarchy. She had fifteen years at least, more like twenty years on them. She could call them son, draw them in.
‘My husband, Silas, he’s good at this business,’ she said. ‘We’ve built clinics, schools, awarded scholarships. He’s a fine man. A man of the people. Our people respect him. Look up to him.’ She went from the one to the other with her eyes. Lingering long enough for them to look down. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Is he alright?’
Zuki nodded.
She sighed a long breath, let her shoulders sag with relief. ‘Thanks, son. You don’t know how much that means to me.’
Kortboy said, ‘Our friends were killed.’
That fell heavily. Zuki getting up to walk off, turn, screaming in his language. Kortboy coming back as loudly.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Veronica Dinsmor when they’d stopped. Thinking: you’re sorry? They hadn’t got in on this, their buddies wouldn’t be dead. Thinking: stay with them here, keep on their side.
‘What worries me,’ she said, ‘is you boys. What’s going to happen to you?’ She paused. ‘The sort of embassy pressure that’ll be on this one …’ She let it tail off. ‘You know what I mean.’